Step 3: The Dirty Work

Step 4: The Finished Product

After our clean up and alterations the system was good as, if not better than, new! All in all we: Created a new base to prevent rust and create b...

For a permaculture class at our school, Maharishi University of Management, we decided as a team to build a rainwater catchment system. As it turned out, the university Sustainable Living department was already equipped with such a system, but upon our inspection, we discovered it was faulty or in disrepair in many areas. We undertook it as our project to the lean about rainwater catchment by repairing the one that already existed. So more than anything this instructable will help you to see the details of having a barrel rain water catchment system and how all the pieces fit together.

We hope this will be a helpful resource for your own endeavors to create a more sustainable and ecologically sound world by preserving and cultivating our most precious resource: water.

Step 1: Materials and Preparation

Because we were coming in and just reconstructing a system that had already been created, our steps were different that starting from scrap, but here I will include a list of materials you will need and the preliminary stages.

You will need:

The Barrel
A barrel, and if a rain barrel for this purpose is not accessible a trash can or other type of barrel can also be turned into this. We used a two barrel system, but this can also be done with one barrel.

I would screen the overflow overflow pipe to keep mosquitoes out. They can fly in through the pipe, get into the barrel water a breed.... and you would never know it.

My system uses open top barrels with air tight seals and locking rings. I have a fine mesh screen attached on the overflow pipe inside of the barrel.inside the barrel. For the most part they stay clean.... as long as your also screen the input opening of the barrel.